Panken at Paris Congress On Democracy and Fascism
Panken at Paris Congress On Democracy and Fascism Because of a misunderstanding of what he said at the Paris Congress of the Labor and Socialist International, Jacob Panken requests that the...
...But before we laugh too uproariously let's look at a bit of history...
...I do not fear a* Fascist Government, although there are some comrades in America who believe that even in the United States there is a possibility of Fascism...
...The class-conRciousness of the proletariat increases as the result )f the acquisition of greater power, rhrough the use of the democratic weapon, within the capitalist framework, the workers were able Eo acquire, not only power but the means to a clearer and more intelligent understanding of their class nterest and also their class power...
...These are the weapons to be used in the acquisition of greater power by the proletariat...
...Being of pure non-Nordic blood (possibly at least one-quarter Jewish) he hates all non-Nordics with a wild, blazing passion possible only to a maniacal half-wit...
...But It may be wise not to let our sense of humor get the better of us...
...Panken at Paris Congress On Democracy and Fascism Because of a misunderstanding of what he said at the Paris Congress of the Labor and Socialist International, Jacob Panken requests that the below excerpts from his speech on democracy, Fascism and the NRA be placed before our readers...
...What a hilarious Soke...
...No one takes them seriously...
...This''General" Smith What a Joke He Is...
...Over in a beer-garden the half-wit is haranguing s congregation of just such derelicts as you can gather any day on the park benches...
...not that he and his crowd are so hilariously amusing to the working people they beat up and crippled .in labor meetings they raided, nor to the idealist Athos Terzani who is being held for the murder of a comrade of his in a riotous meeting the "General" staged, but taking it by and large, he and his crowd are pretty funny...
...And since then...
...The appearance of the Khaki Shirts is pretty comical, too...
...They call themselves the Khaki Shirts of America...
...He, too, hates the Jews, He, too, would like to Do Something...
...What are you to do with such an Industrial Recovery Act...
...Schtickelgrubcr-Hitler is at the Biirgerbrauhaus...
...But as a result of the State capitalism which has been developed, there will follow the development of a more vigorous Labor movement, a more vigorous Socialist mvement snd as a result possibly an understanding between the Trade Union movement and the Socialist movement to the end that both work in the same direction...
...We are taking advantage of the possibility inherent in the act...
...Six nuts sitting at a table in a Munich beer hall, weeping into their steins over the woes of the world...
...All the peoples of the world are represented in our community...
...We in the United States believe that you in Europe may follow in the footsteps of America...
...Then came the Nordic movement...
...I have no apprehension on that score...
...The March on Philadelphia JNSTEAD, however, of the March on Washington the cops marched on Art's headquarters in Philadelphia, and pinched a bevy of Majors and Brigadiers and Generalfeldmarschnlls, all minor fry, and held them for violation of minor ordinances...
...But Let's Not Take Him Too Lightly ".QENERAL" ART J. SMITH is .quite a joke...
...The Day comes...
...six non-workers, count them...
...We cannot abandon the methods that democracy affords...
...General" Art was going to "March on Washington," as Mussolini marched on Rome, as General Buller marched on Ladysmith, and as Mae West marched on Hollywood...
...Funny, of course...
...Later he is caught and jailed, In jail he broods even more^and composes the literary atrocity known as "Mein Kampf," known as the worlds craziest book...
...it carries with it a great many other rights...
...In 1880 we had the American Protestant Association, nationalist in its basis...
...Educational facilities, greater leis-.ire, the freeing of the child from labor—all these were the results A the exercise of democratic met h >ds as I define them...
...The Socialists meet in the Meadow, fiutadrcds of thousands of them,.with red-flags and stirring music, to dedicate themselves to Liberty, Justice, Democracy, Equality —to Peace...
...Side-splitting, evocative of belly-laughs...
...He is telling what he will do when he rules Germany...
...just like Art Smith, yotf sec...
...The I>eader leaps upon a table and fires a revolver into the air and shouts "Deutscldand, erwachel" "Germany, Awake...
...It is very difficult for the International to lay down cast iron rules for all the nations,' because each nation has an entirely different economic development, an entirely different psychology, and different industrial implications...
...his name is Adolf Hitler, son of a Slovak mother and Austrian father named Alois Schiickclgruber, who adopted his mother's maiden name to acquire a small inheritance...
...Now we are concerned here with three propositions...
...weapons that...
...Out of the democratic methods employed in our country, in Great Britain, in France and elsewhere, we have obtained for our peoples the right of free speech, the right of a free press, the right of free assembly, the right of a strike, and these rights are weapons in the hands of the working class...
...Democracy to us in the Socialist movement does not mean merely the right to exercise (he suffrage— the vote...
...The Leader falls on his belly, plays dead and thus escapes for a while...
...What are we to do with this National Industrial Recovery Act...
...At any rate, the day of the rule of the people was over...
...He is not a German...
...Warning UK goes to the street corners, climbs on tablet in beer-halls, He curses the "criminals" who give him the right to rant so insanely...
...There is a definite gain to be had for the working class in America, for it will undoubtedly compel, as I have already told you, the Trade Union Movement to change its methods...
...if properly used, must result in the acquisition on the part of the workers of greater power and even greater rights...
...Ach, die Judenl What would not they do if they got a chance at the accursed Jews...
...He is invited to sit down by the six nuts who tell him that thev are the German National Socialist Labor Party...
...The air is tense with excitement...
...Art is the "General," and titles are tossed around with gay abandon...
...Six nuts, precisely like six nuts sitting at tables in Berlin and Greenwich Village, in Johannesburg and London, in Reykjavik and Christchurch, in Montevideo and Pago-Pago, settling the problems that vex mankind, from sex ana marriage to the Nebular Hypothesis...
...If Franklin D declined, he might take the job himself...
...The menagerie swarms with "Colonels" and "Majors" and ''Adjutants...
...One of the things that this conference, in my judgment, should pronounce, is that in the democratic countries it has become the duty of the working class, and particularly of the Socialist movement, to defend democracy and so refuse, under any circumstances, to give up those rights which have been acquired by the workers...
...khaki tunics and patent leather spiked helmets, the Pkkelhaule that once topped off members of the Kaiser's army, and now worn by Munich and Innsbruck traffic cops...
...The Socialist parties should put at the disposal of the workers their entire resources at any time that the proletariat is engaged in a struggle on .the economic field...
...The stranger counts himself in and becomes Member Number Seven...
...Then in 1922 and 1929 we had the revival of the Klu Klux Klan...
...The "General," however, had flown the coop because of charges of petty thievery or something like that...
...Labor is now face to face in the United States, as elsewhere, with some very serious problems...
...One thing, however, in my judgment, ought to be laid down as a guiding principle for all democratic countries, and that is that the agencies already available shall be used and defended by the workers...
...A moron with a vacant look on his stupid face drifts in...
...We fought that and won...
...ev . . . . "General" Art Smith and all th* other would-be Fascist leaders are likewise very funny indeed...
...There is no doubt that what is being attempted in the U. S. at this time is the beginning of State capitalism—a State capitalism which will permit of the con-* ti nuance of the private ownership of the machinery of industry and use Government instrumentalities to collect on behalf of capitalism profits on commodities from the people of the nation as a whole...
...In the excitement seventeen people are killed...
...It is a. glorious, an inspiring spectacle...
...All ' these movements failed and they failed because we in the U. S. are : more or less an international na-' tion rather than a/ nationalistic nation...
...He was going to take possession of the Capital and proclaim President Roosevelt Dictator...
...RESENT day democracy is not an ideal, neither can terrorism be made an ideal...
...He soon becomes Number One in the "party," for a gift of swaying people by a curious kind of oratory is discovered in him...
...It has sold over a million copies i) He is soon released as a harmless nut, a menace to nobody, and to nothing...
...our objective is Socialism and the proletariat must, in its revolutioanry spirit, know the objective...
...He curses Jews, Frenchmen, Socialists, liberals, pacifists—everybody, On May Day, 1922, he proclaims in his lordly way that if the Socialists celebrate there will be bloodshed...
...It is eleven years ago...
...The question is, what are we going to do in order to help Labor to acquire power...
...An abandonment or a refusal or failure to take advantage of them will do incalculable harm to the working class...
Vol. 16 • October 1933 • No. 18
